You may ask, “So what?” Actually, I think the implications have been immense for the profession of psychiatry, and perhaps for patients. If we pay more attention to these comments and to their evolution, we might well conclude that they have had a major negative impact on the identity of psychiatrists.

DSM-II

Please bear with me as I turn back to DSM-II. There is no “Cautionary Statement,” but instead, a parallel commentary in the Foreword. It does not directly say who can officially use the manual but implies it is psychiatrists:

“The Committee has attempted to put down what it judges to be generally agreed upon by well-informed psychiatrists today. In selecting suitable diagnostic terms for each rubric, the Committee has chosen terms which it thought would facilitate maximum communication within the profession and reduce confusion and ambiguity to a minimum.”

“. . . the opportunity to make multiple diagnoses does not lessen the physician’s responsibility.”

Since psychiatrists are physicians, the responsibility must have been intended to be ours.

DSM-III

When we get to DSM-III, who is qualified to be a diagnostician is much more ambiguous. In essence, it allows anyone with mental health training to claim they are knowledgeable enough to make a DSM diagnosis and get paid for it. It does not say that “specialized clinical training” means 4 years of medical school, followed by 4 years of internship and residency training—even though many diagnostic categories are laced with medical considerations. It also does not specify what “body of knowledge and clinical skills” are adequate. Given the common perception that there is a “cookbook” approach to DSM-IV, it may seem that just reviewing the criteria and asking if a patient has the symptoms would be easy and adequate.

It has been hard to find out how this fine print came to be, but we can note that DSM-II came out at the beginning of the community mental health movement. Before then, psychiatrists were still clearly the leaders in the field. As community mental health centers developed, multidisciplinary teams emerged as more outpatient clinicians were quickly needed. While there was much advantage to pooling the specific knowledge base of various disciplines, as we tried to indicate in the book I co-edited, A Clinician’s Manual on Mental Health Care: A Multidisciplinary Approach (Menlo Park, Calif: Addison-Wesley; 1982), there were also potential drawbacks. Roles often became blurred, especially regarding administrative, diagnostic, and psychotherapeutic functions. Paraprofessionals were added. Some teams went so far as to become egalitarian.

DSM-5

By 1980, when DSM-III came out, these changes may have been reflected in who could—or should—use the manual. Because it was bought by so many more clinicians, it became a best seller for its publisher, the American Psychiatric Association. This is recalled in a question the American Association of Community Psychiatrists gave to our current candidates for APA office on the controversy about DSM-5’s development. One answered:

“DSM-IV, imperfect as it is, has been an extraordinary moneymaker for APA. DSM-5 also is likely to make a lot of money, which we certainly need! . . . If there were numerous scientific breakthroughs we could better justify moving fast.”

Much has been written about DSM-5, especially in Psychiatric Times, including concerns about transparency, diagnostic criteria, timing, and the influence of Pharma. The developmental group is now entering the stage of inviting comments from psychiatrists at large. Up until now, I believe virtually nothing has been discussed about who should use it. If we gradually obtain neuroimaging and/or genetic markers to improve diagnosing, it would seem that the diagnostic process will become even more of a medical one, most suitable for psychiatrists.

This, then, is a unique opportunity to address the crisis of the identity, authority, and compensation of psychiatrists. I would therefore caution against the same Cautionary Statement. Instead, I would say something like:

“This diagnostic manual is derived mainly from the expertise of psychiatrists. Given the importance of general medical knowledge in making an accurate psychiatric diagnosis, the appropriate use of this manual is for psychiatrists to certify the official diagnosis. The exception would be those who are specially trained and supervised by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.”

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A RESPONSE FROM CHARLES HUFFINE, MD

I have grave difficulties with the implications that psychiatrists have some special knowledge about diagnoses due to our tenure in medical school and a residency.

When psychiatrists are designated as sole diagnosticians, with all the implied medical pretense, it serves to isolate us in a state of “hyperspecialization” wherein we no longer have authority in the psychosocial aspects of the mental health field. It is painfully obvious in community mental health settings where 90% of the action is with mental health professionals from other fields. No doubt many are under, or poorly trained—but I would contend that many of us are, too. We get chained to the pillbox! A mind-numbing place to land.

My respect goes to experienced, well-rounded mental health professionals who have worked with difficult clientele, have faced tough decisions, have had to take responsibility in a crisis, and have had some patients complete suicide in their care. No, we are NOT the only ones. These are my colleagues, those in whom I place my trust, those who I know can use our diagnostic tool while at the same time still thinking for themselves. I trust those who do NOT cookbook diagnoses or use fancy but sterile scales, who actually get to know a new patient/client/consumer in the room with them, and who can engage them, drink them in, and feel the symptoms, have an organic notion of the diagnosis even before they name it. I respect those who have a healthy skepticism regarding the worth or validity of those diagnoses that are really not diagnoses such as Conduct Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and even Antisocial Personality Disorder (forgive me for airing my C&A psychiatrist pet peeves.) I trust those clinicians who can smoothly integrate a good feel for cultural issues, for social factors such as poverty, and are not afraid to stare in the face of horrific abuse and subsequent trauma. I value those who don’t see “explanations” in neuroimaging rather understand such images as only the physical correlates to what we already know very well from clinical knowledge.

Many psychiatrists achieve my respect for this more comprehensive view of our field, but I have found that my colleagues with such comprehensive understandings frequently include other specialties (ie psychologists, experienced social workers and other masters level mental health professionals, and occasional occupational therapists [or even once a “clinical” anthropologist]). I trust these to use OUR DSM tools expertly and, even more important, have their diagnoses rest on an elegantly conceived formulation of what is going on with the patient/client.

It is true that (occasionally) these individuals have deferred to psychiatrists when clear medical problems were effecting brain function; but even in these cases, there is a role for neuropsycologists and OT’s who have had long experience in rehab units and may know more of the medical significance of the behavior or symptoms of a patient than most psychiatrists.

Our guys wrote the book, actually a narrow subset of “us guys,” mostly academic psychiatrists, wrote the book. Do they convey in the text all the wisdom in the mental health field? No they don’t! But they do have the corner on the market of how we get paid—a little string of numbers from our book attached to the diagnoses given the patient matched with another string of numbers indicating what we did for our patients seals the deal, money flows to our offices, hospitals, clinics, etc., and everyone is happy. It is disingenuous to say that only a psychiatrist can provide that service—we can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t. Nevertheless, the DSM-5 will guarantee a continuation of the big bonanza for the APA—it will make all of us get the $$$.

I don’t mean to be too cynical just dealing with practical reality and the world as it is. Lets just not be too self-congratulatory about our very flawed but useful product. Let’s definitely NOT claim a corner on the diagnostic market lest we appear naked and ridiculous. Let’s buck the tide and seek a practice where we can be the wise, experienced, broadly trained clinicians who have EARNED the ability to use the DSM wisely.

************************Dr Moffic replies to Dr Huffine:

Thanks, Dr Huffine. I obviously disagree. The DSM-5 will make the APA a lot of money, but it won’t enrich psychiatrists, at least as long as other disciplines can also make official diagnoses. And, if our medical background doesn’t matter more, just give psychologists, et al, prescription privileges.